PILGRIM’S PRIDE ACCUSED OF CRUEL CHICKEN PRACTICES
Humane Society files 81-page complaint with USDA.
According to a complaint filed Wednesday by the Humane Society with the Federal Trade Commission, the majority of Pilgrim’s Pride chickens are raised and slaughtered in cruel and inhumane environments and sold as “100 percent natural” birds that were raised as “humanely as possible.”
The Humane Society said the allegations in its 81-page complaint are based on undercover investigations, whistle-blower claims and U.S. Department of Agriculture inspection records. Like most broiler chickens in the U.S., Pilgrim’s Pride birds have been bred to grow so fast that their legs can’t support them, according to the complaint. The breed grows unnaturally fast, reaching slaughter weight in a mere 50 days, and frequently suffers from cardiovascular problems, ruptured tendons and bone deformities, the Humane Society alleged. The usually dark, windowless barns they live in are filled with feces, ammonia and dust, contributing to respiratory problems and eye lesions, according to the complaint. The buildings are so crowded that birds are afforded only about 100 square inches each.
Pilgrim’s Pride, a Greeley-based subsidiary of Brazilian meat processing giant JBS, the USDA and the National Chicken Council, an industry lobby, didn’t immediately return calls or emails seeking comment on the filing.
Some chickens effectively are drowned and burned alive, the group says. In general, so many U.S.-produced broiler chickens die on the way to slaughter that the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service calls them DOAs, or “dead on arrival,” the Humane Society said. At the Pilgrim’s Pride processing plant, the living birds are shackled by their legs and hung upside down, to be dragged through stun baths and killed, according to the complaint. However, the process doesn’t always work as intended. Sometimes the chickens miss the bath entirely, or they aren’t sufficiently stunned (out of concern for damaging their flesh) and remain conscious as their throats are slit by industrial kill blades, the Humane Society said. Still, even some of those chickens survive because they miss the blades, and the “backup killer” as well, the Humane Society alleged.
Unstunned and unkilled, Pilgrim’s Pride processors are “scalding fully conscious chickens,” the Humane Society said. Such birds are effectively drowned and burned alive when they are submerged in hot water intended to make feather removal easier, according to the complaint.
When this happens, the birds turn red. In industry vernacular, these birds are known as “red birds.” These conditions, the Humane Society says, are “absolutely not the most humane option possible.”
Humane Society and other animal welfare activists prefer Controlled Atmosphere Stunning Systems, in which birds are slowly gassed. It’s gaining traction as a preferred slaughter method.